Shi Ji: Grand Historian

Records of the Grand Historian, authored by Sima Qian of the Western Han dynasty, is China's first comprehensive historical work written in the biographical style and stands as the foremost of the "Twenty-Four Histories." Comprising 130 chapters, it chronicles approximately three thousand years of history from the Yellow Emperor down to the Taichu reign period of Emperor Wu of Han. The work is organized into five sections—basic annals, tables, treatises, hereditary houses, and biographies—establishing the fundamental format for the compilation of official Chinese histories. Lu Xun praised it as "the masterpiece of historians, the Lisao without rhyme."

Sima Qian carried forward the unfinished aspiration of his father, Sima Tan. After enduring the calamity of Li Ling's affair and the trauma of castration, he nonetheless spurred himself on with the resolve to "investigate the boundary between heaven and man, comprehend the changes of past and present, and establish a school of his own," completing this immortal magnum opus. Its narrative is grand in scope, its characters vividly portrayed—figures such as Xiang Yu, Liu Bang, Zhang Liang, Han Xin, Qu Yuan, and the merchants in the "Biographies of the Money-Makers" have all become classic images in China's cultural memory.

Records of the Grand Historian is not only a work of historiography but also a literary treasure. Its language is vigorous and profound, skillfully employing contrast, detail, and commentary. Celebrated chapters such as the "Basic Annals of Xiang Yu," "Biographies of Assassins," and "Biographies of Wandering Knights" have been recited for millennia. Famous lines from the book, such as "The world bustles and hustles, all for gain; the world jostles and hustles, all for profit," have become deeply embedded in the Chinese language.

As a dual pinnacle of Chinese historiography and literature, Records of the Grand Historian established the narrative tradition for later official histories. Reading this work allows one to survey the turbulent changes from high antiquity to the early Han, to feel the grandeur and pathos of a historian writing history with his very life, and to understand Chinese civilization's profound self-awareness concerning historical memory.